Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Fulfilling the Law of God

Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

Jesus said to him, “'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. (James 2:8)

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. (1 John 3:21-23)
If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have been born again by the Spirit of God, and have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. You are part of the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremiah:
“Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." (Jeremiah 31:31-33)
This is a new and better covenant, established on better promises and mediated through the blood of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:6; Mark 14:24).

If you know Jesus, you have that going on inside of you. That is why Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Instead, you will be fulfilling all the law of God. But it does require the Holy Spirit working in you:
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:12-14)
Love fulfills the law of God, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love:
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
The Lord Jesus declared, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). In Him, we have the new life of the Spirit, so that we can truly walk in love, and so fulfill the law of God.

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